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Regency Bicentennial: First Printing of Beowulf

I just read this blog, twice. Mostly because my wip is very much following, in a strange and perverted manner this post!
My fantasy romance includes the character Beowulf, who in an alternate reality is transported into mid-Regency England.
Sooo . . . I have two heroes and a lovely heroine.
The “other” hero is a scholar, the foremost historian-author of all things BEOWULF.
I really needed something like fact to grasp onto regarding the early translations of the poem . . . and you’ve just handed it all to me!
Kathryn, you are a lifesaver. I have lots of books–all translations, but no history.
Thanks so much.
Elaine Bedigian

How many of us read the epic Old English poem, Beowulf (in translation, of course), when we were in high school or college? If, like me, you found it rather slow going, you now have yet another reason to wish to be transported back to the Regency. No one, except a handful of scholars, had any idea of the existence of this epic poem at that time. Even when the first transcription and translation of Beowulf was finally published, during the Regency, it was not printed in England, or in English. Perhaps fittingly, since British bombardment nearly prevented the first translation from ever being completed. Or did it?